Test – What’s the Renewable Energy with the Quickest Payback?
Posted by Damien Cabral on Tue, Oct 27, 2009
It’s not Wind
It’s not Solar PV
It’s not Geothermal
It’s not Biomass, or Tidal or even Solar Hot Water (although it’s close behind!)
It’s Solar Pool Heating!
Yes, that’s right, Solar Pool Heating pays for itself faster than any other renewable energy technology.
And not only is Solar Pool Heating the most cost effective, it also has an added benefit:
Pools heated by Solar can be opened earlier in the season (even in April) and can still be warm enough to swim in October (if you’re brave enough to try here in New England!).
Here’s how it works: Solar pool panels (made of PVC piping – think garden hose full of water sitting in the sun) are mounted on your roof. When the sun hits the panels, the cool pool water is cycled through the solar pool panels, heated up and piped back into the pool. Most systems today have simple electronic controls so all this happens automatically. Over the course of the day this process provides plenty of heat to get pools warm in the spring and keep them toasty into the fall.
Anyone who owns a pool knows how expensive it can be to heat a pool even during the summer season (can be as high as $2,000 to $3,000). A solar pool system will usually cost between $4,000-$6,000 making the payback as little as 2 years.
And that doesn’t even include the extended season for devotees of the Polar Bear Swimming Club!